One Journalist's Desperate Fight to Unseal Video That Could Expose 'Rampant Criminality' in the Abortion Industry
In 2015, David Daleiden and his team at the Center for Medical Progress shed light on the blatant violations of human dignity taking place behind closed doors in the American abortion industry.
Footage obtained during the pro-life group’s 30-month undercover exposé showed high-ranking Planned Parenthood officials negotiating the sale of aborted body parts. Many of these secret recordings took place at National Abortion Federation conferences and trade shows, where Daleiden and his colleagues met with abortion providers and executives.
The “hundreds of hours of undercover footage” allowed the public to witness the dehumanizing nature of abortion, along with how its legalization paved the way for the criminal exploitation of women and their babies. Despite this, however, Daleiden and his fellow journalists have been treated like criminals, rather than Planned Parenthood or NAF.
In 2019, Judge William Orrick III awarded Planned Parenthood $16 million in its civil lawsuit against the pro-life journalist — even though the abortion vendor admitted under oath to the accuracy of CMP’s videos.
Orrick sided with the abortion industry again on April 7, when he granted a permanent injunction to NAF, leaving Daleiden’s undercover trade show and conference footage sealed from the eyes of the public.
NAF had previously been granted a temporary injunction on Daleiden’s footage in 2016, but Orrick’s recent decision barred the release of additional footage indefinitely.
Paul Jonna, an attorney with Daleiden’s legal counsel at the Thomas More Society, analyzed NAF’s determination to “keep these videos away from public view and dissemination.”
While NAF claims it is only concerned for the “safety” of its members, Jonna suggested another motivation was behind the “millions of dollars in lawyer time” spent to suppress the damning undercover footage.
“They’re obviously very worried about their reputation,” Jonna told The Western Journal.
“They’re very worried about the dark secrets being brought to light, which is what the whole purpose of this investigation was, to expose this black market in this corrupt industry.”
Despite the setback, the attorney expressed confidence that the videos will “eventually see the light of day” on appeal.
Regardless of a person’s views on abortion, Jonna said the revelations in CMP’s videos should bother people.
“It’s not about abortion only; it’s also about violating state and federal laws regarding profiting from the sale of aborted fetal tissue.”
“So even if you’re a Planned Parenthood supporter, you should want Planned Parenthood following the law,” he added.
The Footage NAF Is Desperate to Conceal
On its website, NAF promotes its annual meeting as a “premier education and networking event” for abortion providers and advocates. If the conferences are merely educational gatherings, that raises several questions about the effort to suppress undercover footage of such events.
While he could not disclose the videos’ content, Daleiden later assured The Western Journal that they would “change the way that we think about and regulate abortion.”
“It’s absolutely chilling footage,” the pro-life journalist said.
“It shows rampant criminality in the American abortion industry, sponsored by Planned Parenthood the whole way through.”
“So, yeah, no wonder Planned Parenthood, and their allies … want to move heaven and earth and in court twist the law in order to silence any discussion of the reality of what happened at those meetings,” he added.
“Because the reality of what was filmed there will completely expose them for the kind of criminal, abusive and corrupt industry that Planned Parenthood and the National Abortion Federation represent.”
In February, The Western Journal compiled a list of several incidents in which abortionists have been caught hoarding the body parts of aborted babies. The article included a CMP video that was posted online in 2015 by Students for Life of America.
The clip featured metro Detroit’s Northland Family Planning Centers founder Renee Chelian addressing an audience at the National Abortion Federation’s annual meeting in San Francisco. During a panel on fetal disposition, Chelian was recorded cavalierly discussing how to dispose of aborted remains.
“I had five months’ worth of fetal tissue in freezers, and we were renting freezers to put them in. It was all I thought about,” Chelian says in the video.
“I was so consumed with fetal tissue; I was ready to drive to Upper Michigan and have a bonfire. And I was just trying to find out how I wouldn’t get stopped or how far into the woods I would have to go to have this fire that nobody was going to see me.”
If this is just a preview of the NAF investigation, then there is no justification for concealing the remaining footage from the public eye.
Abortion entities should not be allowed to cover up their abuse of women and children, and people are entitled to look behind the curtain and see how these organizations behave when they think no one is watching.
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